The Kettle

A basin walled on the northeast by open water and closed at two corners by standing rock. Nineteen tiles, thirteen you can walk.

This chapter says what the ground is. It does not say what is standing on it, and you should not expect it to.

The ground

@Missing file — open grass on the level. The easiest walking and the least cover; you are visible on it from every ridge that overlooks it.

@Missing file — old mixed timber, close enough to slow you and dense enough to hide what stands twenty paces off. Good wood, good game, poor sightlines.

@Missing file — rising stony ground, thin-soiled and wind-scoured. Hard going, and the only place you can see the whole region from.

@Missing file — standing shallows and floating sedge with firm ground somewhere underneath that you find by testing. Slow, cold, and worth crossing only because of what grows there.

@Missing file — past any depth you can wade. It is not an obstacle to overcome; it is the edge of where walking works, and it shapes every route in the region by being there.

@Missing file — broken rock in vertical faces and unstable towers. There is no route through it on foot with a pack, and pretending otherwise is how travellers are lost.

The shape it makes

Look at the water before you plan anything. It sits across the northeast and it cuts the eastern marsh off from everything to the west — that tile touches the walkable region at a single edge on its southwest side.

So the east is not far away. It is just awkward, and it is awkward in a way you can see from the first moment, which is the point.

The two crags close the northeast corner and the southwest corner. Neither is a loss; they are what make the basin a basin.

What grows and what stands

Some things in the Kettle are spent when you use them and some are not, and the difference is worth learning early.

Spent once: @Missing file. Somebody is buried under piled stone and whatever went in with them is still there. Open it and it is open; fail badly and it collapses and stays collapsed.

Standing features: @Missing file restores you to full and will do it again every time you pass. @Missing file gives workable stone and does not run out. @Missing file regrows, though not immediately — forage the same patch twice in a row and it is picked over. @Missing file costs nothing and shows you the neighbours.

A region you can only strip once is a region you leave. The Kettle is built to be lived in, and the standing features are why.